FEBRUARY 7: The Brewers have designated righty Donovan Hand for assignment to clear a roster spot for Francisco Rodriguez, the club announced. The 27-year-old got his first taste of the big leagues last year.

In 31 appearances, seven of them starts, Hand pitched to a 3.69 ERA in 68 1/3 innings for the Brewers in 2013. He posted 4.9 K/9 and 2.8 BB/9 in that stretch. Hand has been solid at all levels as a professional, never allowing more than four earned runs per nine in a given season. In 44 Triple-A appearances in 2012, he threw 79 2/3 innings of 3.84 ball; last year, in 35 2/3 innnings at the highest minor league level, he notched a 3.28 mark.

I thought about that being a possibility for quite some time now seeing how Roenicke is familiar with him from his Angels days but he is simply not worth the draft pick we’d have to forfeit to get him, I would rather head forward with Reynolds/Overbay/Francisco/Halton/Morris. I think we’ll be fine there.

The Brewers will have the 12th pick, outside of the top 10 protected picks. As for Morales himself, there are doubts as to his ability to play the field for an entire season, so him going to an NL team is doubtful unless he signs dirt cheap.